The cool girl.
Who is she?
Who am I?
How does she live? Is there one ultimate “it” girl to complete the coolest of cool girl prophecies?
Where’s the formula? Where’s the recipe to achieve the cool girl vibes of my dreams?
What Youtube tutorial should one follow?
From my perspective, through the years and different types of media, the cool girl has always seemed male gaze-y. A couple prime examples of my point being “The Cool Girl Monologue” in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, and also the particular manic pixie dream-ification of Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim vs The World movie. The concept left a bitter aftertaste, to say the least.
I had to sit down, sheet mask on, a glass of pinot grigio on the side and “Dancing Queen” by ABBA blaring in the background while my fingers touched the keyboard hesitantly and commenced to ponder:
Who are the cool girls?
What do they eat?
What do they read?
What do they feel?
?
As I go through my day to day life, there’s rarely a time where the concept of being perceived is a reality of mine, so when one of my peers stops me and says: “You’re literally the cool girl babe!”
I stand there frozen, filled with confusion, flattery, and intrigue.
Never having considered myself part of that category—the one where you walk down the halls and inadvertently command the attention of the room, or stun even, with last night’s mascara running under your eyes that just makes you look like a rockstar; a Regina George with candy filled teeth still having a line of prospects; a Serena Vanderwoodsen who has to always fashionably leave for a thing; or even a Megan Fox wearing her kid’s baby tee candidly getting photographed by paparazzi while sipping on a cherry coke. Everyone knows of you and if they don’t, they want to. There’s a belief within me that there’s something eternally unachievable within that category. Becoming it just wasn’t on the top of the priority list, so when someone points such a thing out, gears definitely shift.
Of course, it’s a goal for some to achieve. It’s being sold anywhere and everywhere currently as the highest form of the feminine archetype, yet being different has made many look the same.
Living life to reach optimus prime levels of cool.
There is wonder and curiosity inside me, regrouping and deconstructing the cool girl ideal and what it actually entails. Are the Serena’s naturally born or are they just Blair Walddorf’s in disguise?
The effort that goes into effortlessness seems excessive.
Guilty!
Many other women can relate to the matter also!
As we mold, pluck, and tighten up “loose ends” it’s just over stimulating and honest to god exhausting. There is a fast changing, aesthetically pleasing, over consuming societal standard, and seeing if it can be applied to my day to day life for “funsies” has been a doozy.
The irony doesn’t escape me that, even as I question the concept of cool girldom, I started to list all the things I might be lacking. Must we torture ourselves by comparing our process and negatives to the idea of someone we don’t know? The mystery entices observers to imprint perfection onto the blank slate of another’s unknown life.
My findings conclude with the notion that ‘cool girl’ doesn’t have all her crap together in her cherry red tote bag, it just seems that way.
Cool girl just… is.
The cool girl isn’t something you can achieve with a credit card and a dream. There is no mold you can fit into or a list titled “aesthetic” you can abide by.
She. Just. Is.
Muah
Xoxo,
another cool girl wannabe.